Watch the trailer of Snow White and the Huntsman, featuring South African actress Charlize Theron as the evil queen and Twilight‘s Kristen Stewart as Snow White: httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VY67V0wOlz8 The movie is due to start hitting movie theatres in June 2012.

The Bang Bang Club, a film about four brave photojournalists in pre-democratic South Africa, has received seven nominations at the 32nd Annual Genie Awards, the Canadian equivalent of the Oscars. The winners will be announced at a ceremony in Toronto on 8 March 2012. The film is based on real-life events that took place in […]

The life of Nelson Mandela has been recorded in numerous books – one of the most comprehensive is his autobiography Long Walk to Freedom. Now, the latest Mandela book offers an insight of a different kind – that of his culinary preferences. Xoliswa Ndoyiya, Mandela’s personal chef, has decided to reveal the former president’s best-loved dishes […]

The 15-year-old South African actress Khomotso Manyaka has earned a position on Time Magazine’s list of the 10 best performances of 2011.       Manyaka was lauded for her performance as the scrawny, big-eyed Chanda in Life Above All, an adaptation of the Allan Stratton novel, Chanda’s Secrets. The film focuses on the stigma surrounding HIV/Aids. Both […]

Two filmmakers from the African continent have been commended by major film bodies for their bold adaptation of an Academy Award-winning film into a true African epic. The Boda Boda Thieves, a film by South African producer James Tayler and Ugandan director Donald Mugisha, has recently been selected as one of five films – out […]

If you grew up in South Africa then it’s almost a guarantee that you have stumbled across the story of Racheltjie De Beer, the Voortrekker girl who, after getting lost with her younger brother during a snowstorm, uses her body to shelter him from the cold, sacrificing her life for his. The time has arrived […]

A huge congratulations to South Africa’s Nashen Moodley who has been appointed Director of Australia’s Sydney Film Festival, making him the first Director that the Australians have ‘imported’. And, as Durbanites know, he’s worth it! Fast-talking movie maestro Nashen has played a crucial role in the development and management of the Durban International Film Festival […]

South African production Skeem scooped the coveted Audience Choice Award at the recent Abu Dhabi Film Festival (ADFF), showing that locally directed motion pictures pose stiff competition among industry heavyweights. The festival ran from 13 October to 22 October 2011. Made by South African Tim Greene, Skeem was pitted against films with big-name directors like Martin Scorsese, Wim […]

The Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory has published a new, authorised book of quotations from the respected former president – one they hope will help his many admirers to quote him accurately from now on. Nelson Mandela by Himself: The Authorised Book of Quotations was released at the Nelson Mandela Foundation on 27 June 2011, and […]

It’s no wonder Khulekani Magubane has produced 17 books by the age of 22. The young man possesses energy, something all good writers need. You can hear it in his tone, which is quick, sharp and electric. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Herman Melville and more recently, Jonathan Safran Foer, were precocious artists who produced some of […]

The South African film industry had a strong presence at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival, with 24 films and documentaries on show and a handful of awards and commendations to bring home. [Read Jenni’s Cannes Film Festival blog for more!] The National Film and Video Foundation was instrumental in arranging the local representation. Even before his […]

AFRIKAANS FILM ‘SKOONHEID’ WINS THE QUEER PALM 2011 OK, so ‘Skoonheid‘ didn’t win in its official category at the Cannes Film Festival (Un Certain Regard), BUT it has won the Queer Palm 2011! The award was presented to Capetonian director Oliver Hermanus at a ceremony on Cherie Cheri Beach in Cannes. “Thank you to the […]

Three South African short films have been selected for the prestigious Internationale Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen, or Oberhausen International Short Film Festival, to be held in May in the river city of that name in the Ruhr region of Germany.   The films are Atrophy by Palesa Shongwe, Balance by Colleen Alborough and Steglitz House by Bridget Baker. The Kurzfilmtage is […]

One of the most moving and magical movies to come out of South Africa is going to be screened in London this weekend and Monday. “Life, Above All (Chanda’s Secret)” is a heartbreaking drama set in South Africa. In it, filmmaker Oliver Schmitz explores and offers insight into cultural taboos, adolescence and religion through the […]

by Janine Erasmus South Africa’s beloved canine icon Jock of the Bushveld has again been immortalised on film, this time in an animated 3D version which, if director Duncan MacNeillie has his way, is set for international distribution. MacNeillie will travel to Los Angeles at the end of November 2010 to present the film to […]

Jann Turner South African hit movie White Wedding is now showing in the US to rave reviews. Jann Turner, who directed and jointly wrote and produced the film, writes about the place that inspired it – South Africa. Are there lions in the streets? Do you live in a mud hut? How come you ain’t […]

by Nicky Rehbock Prof Alice Walker has arrived in South Africa to deliver the 11th annual lecture honouring the late Stephen Bantu Biko, an anti-apartheid activist and leader who founded the Black Consciousness Movement. Walker, best known for her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Colour Purple, was invited to the country by the Steve Biko Foundation, […]

by Janine Erasmus South African film Themba: A Boy Called Hope, directed by Pretoria-born Stefanie Sycholt, has scooped the Unicef Child Rights Award at the 2010 Zanzibar International Film Festival (Ziff). (Scroll down for video trailer.) Sycholt received the prize from Unicef Germany board member Anne Luetkes at the film’s premiere in Cologne on 1 […]

by Jennifer Stern Walking is much more than a way to get from A to B. It’s a meditation and a pilgrimage. The late Boudewijn Wegerif, a Swede who walked from Stockholm to Cape Town in 1999 to protest world debt, called walking “brain aerobics.” He maintained that the regular movement of your left leg […]

Eish. The World Cup Concert got off to a pretty good start. But due to a combination of factors, the middle bit (on right now) has steadily put a lot of viewers to sleep…who are now only staying awake to watch Waka Waka (This Time for Africa) performed by Shakira and featuring Freshlyground. It could […]

Here’s a special peek into new book “Should I Stay or Should I Go – To live in or leave South Africa”, taken from the Introduction by author and publisher Tim Richman: This is neither a pro-South Africa book nor an anti-South Africa book. It is a book about emigration in the South African context, […]

A new book about emigrating from SA has been released that’s sure to stir the conversation at braais and dinner parties in South Africa and across the globe: Should I Stay Or Should I Go? Yes, it’s a song by The Clash, but it’s also a defining question for the modern Rainbow Nation and now, […]

by Nosimilo Ramela New York’s prestigious Tribeca Film Festival has named the South African film Father Christmas Doesn’t Come Here its best narrative short film in an indigenous language. Funded by the National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF) the film was chosen from 47 finalists as one of the Indigenous Language short film contest winners. […]

by Bongani Nkosi Jakhalsdans, a new South African film, has become an almost instant box office hit, setting new standards for the Afrikaans-language movies. The feature film, which opened in South African cinemas on 23 April, earned R600 000 (US$80 123) in its opening weekend, making it the most popular Afrikaans motion picture since the […]

by Nosimilo Ramela A new South African film is set to draw crowds to cinemas this May. Billed as the country’s biggest romantic comedy yet, I Now Pronounce You Black and White uses humour to explore the delicate and often fraught issue of inter-racial relationships. (View Trailer). The film is set in Cape Town, in […]